The present invention relates to a component support, and, more specifically, to a component or capacitor support for a densely populated circuit board.
Recent trends in antenna array configurations point toward the use of increasingly complex circuit boards that are tightly packed with densely populated components. At the same time, the trends indicate that the real estate made available for strain relief of the components (i.e., capacitors) with off the shelf clamps will be reduced. Thus, current circuit board design programs presently have and will continue to have a need for compact capacitor support that efficiently uses available circuit board space to provide for strain relief.
Typically, capacitor support is provided by vertical mounting brackets. These clamps are adjustable to multiple sizes of capacitors, are extremely cheap and can be repeatedly deployed when adequate space is allocated to accommodate them. However, as noted above, circuit board densities are becoming critical and there is rarely additional space available for the wide flange on these clamps. Other options include clamps that are often used in automotive applications. These clamps are also relatively inexpensive and repeatedly deployable by press-fittings into their circuit boards so as to not require any additional solder operations. The right angle design of these clamps uses considerable real estate, however, and therefore they are not ideal for applications where dense packaging is necessary. Yet another option includes bonding of capacitors to circuit boards directly but the adhesives that can be used are limited and rework is challenging.